This week for our ICR we discussed at the Take Me To China section of the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. Before this meeting we were assigned to take the virtual tour of this exhibit. We discussed many of the topics in the tour such as acupuncture and eastern medicine. We then talked about jade and art using it.
We began discussion be talking about eastern medicine and it was interesting to hear about Kwan’s take on it since he went to school for pharmacology and did medical research. We discussed how eastern medicine generally cannot always be measurable and repeatable. The mechanics of these techniques such as acupuncture are difficult to prove, but for some ailments they tend to work. It was interesting to learn about pressure points of the body which links to our martial arts session.
Another main topic we talked about was jade. Jade is known for its durability and is a sign of wealth. It is highly appreciated in oriental countries and the highest quality comes from Burma. This is the hardest of all jade and most pure.
We then followed this up by discussing tea and all the variations of it. We discussed the medical benefits of different kinds of tea. We also talked about the social aspect to drinking tea and how some cultures treat it as a ritual and others focus primarily on the taste.
This experience was very beneficial to understand the smaller details of the Chinese culture and topics that we might not have covered in our class sessions. This was very beneficial to see how much information is being presented in our local area in a great platform such as the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. This helps the younger generations to also become more culturally aware.